I cannot imagine how Paul did it. Here he is, in prison, chained to a soldier, and he is talking about hope and making plans for the future. How can anyone with half a brain do that? Does he not understand how perilous is his predicament? Chained! Awaiting trial! And yet he can say, “It is for the sake of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.”
It’s not fair, is it? You and I are sure that Paul’s imprisonment was an injustice, and, although the Bible does not report Paul’s death, tradition suggests that he was beheaded in Rome in the year 67 AD. It was, by our standards, a gross injustice.
And yet it is not only that Paul in chains speaks of hope; it is also that throughout his long ministry, a whole host of things happened that never should have happened at all. A chronicle of injustices. In one of his letters, he catalogs them for us: “Imprisonments … countless floggings, and often near death. Five times … the forty lashes minus one. Three times … beaten with rods. Once … a stoning. Three times … shipwrecked; for a night and a day … adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked.”
Great day, what is this man? Is he stark raving mad? And still he persists after all of this. He puts himself into a position to be arrested once more, once more put into chains. And still he speaks of hope. Oh, let’s just go home; this cannot be someone worth listening to, can it?!
And as if all that were not enough, when the Book of Acts ends, Luke the historian says that Paul lived in Rome in chains, two years more, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.” Without hindrance? Chains are no hindrance? Prison is no hindrance? That Roman soldier with one hand on his sword is no hindrance? The injustice of the system is no hindrance? What is this all about, “without hindrance?”
I propose to you today that the purposes of God will be accomplished. No human barrier will stop the work of God. No chain will hold back His word. No oppression will forever shackle His people. And no injustice need keep His church from working without hindrance.
Yes, of course there will be setbacks. Yes, I well recognize that our failures will slow the pace. Yes, surely I do know that evil empires and malice aforethought will triumph for a little while. But I am committed to this one great truth: that the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. Beyond the chains, past the injustice, despite whatever barriers may be thrown up in the way, His truth is marching on. And the purposes of our God will be accomplished.
That means that God’s church should rejoice in apparent hindrances. That means that when we feel held back, we shall look for ways to break the chains, because eventually there will be an answer, and the purposes of God will be accomplished. Not without blood, sweat, and tears, even sacrifice, to be sure. But God’s justice will be done, God’s victory will come. Without hindrance.
I
In this Black History Month, I have felt moved to illustrate and expand this theme by looking with you at Africa. Africa is torn by strife and oppression. Much of that is left over from the age of colonialism. Much of the terror that strikes that continent comes from the history of exploitation brought by Europeans and fostered by the American slave trade. The history is monstrous.
But not just the history; also the present day. We in this church heard Agnes Datoloum’s cry for the safety of her family, caught up in the conflict in Chad. We learned from Mark Deuser about the effects of tribal warfare on Pastor Olero’s ministry in Kenya. We, along with many others, have wondered why the world does not effectively intervene to stop the slaughter in Sudan. Injustice is everywhere and chains are still being forged for many of the peoples of Africa.
And yet nowhere on earth is it more wonderfully demonstrated that the purposes of God will be accomplished, despite the chains. Let me tell you a couple of stories.
A
Julius Mabey is a young Liberian who one day showed up at the church I served as pastor. He said he was looking for a few dollars and for a place to stay. As I listened to Julius, I found I was dealing with a homeless refugee. He had nothing to support himself other than the kindness of a Liberian family in our community, plus his own deep faith. I asked, “Julius, what about your family?” “All dead – killed in a raid on our village.” “Julius, how is it you escaped?” “I gathered up some children while the soldiers burned our houses, and we hid in a pile of brush.” “Julius, what about those children? Where are they?” “One of them started to cry, and the soldiers found us. We ran, but I am the only one who was not killed.” And then Julius said to me, “Pastor, I know that God spared me for a reason. I know that He wants me to preach the Gospel.”
Over several months our church worked with Julius to help him. One of our members found a way to give him employment. Another of our members, an attorney, helped him obtain his green card. Someone else directed him to a school where he could learn a useful skill. But throughout it all, in Julius’ heart there was a burning desire to preach the Gospel in Liberia.
Frankly, all I saw were barriers. All I saw were hindrances. He could not go home, not under that regime. He would have been killed. He could not enroll in a seminary to train for preaching, because every little bit of money he had went just to pay his bills, and besides, he could not have met American academic qualifications. Everywhere we looked, we saw only the injustice in the homeland and the chains that bound him to nothing more than merely getting by here in America.
But Julius is a man of prayer. Julius shared his testimony with our church, and asked us to pray as well. Things began to happen. First, we found a ministry training program that would take Julius on. Second, we responded to one of Julius’ dreams – he had worked with a small church in Monrovia that had grown through street preaching, and Julius wanted them to have a portable sound system so that that work could continue. We raised the money for the sound system and found a vendor who could ship it. We prayed and things began to happen.
And then there was a regime change. The oppressive government was replaced. Julius could go home again. What am I saying? Am I claiming that a Baptist church in Washington, DC, prayed down a military regime? Am I suggesting that our paltry prayers pulverized the power of oppression? That would be too much to claim; and yet, do we not know that God’s purposes will be accomplished? Do we not understand that what our God will do, He will do, across all barriers, around all boundaries, breaking all chains? Do we not grasp that though the mills of justice grind exceeding slow, yet grind they do until God’s work is done? Without hindrance; we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If you pray that, believe it. Live it. Without hindrance.
B
Another story: Dr. Adrien Ngudiankama is another African friend of mine. He grew up in Congo in a family closely related to American Baptist missions work. His parents were both teachers in mission schools run by Baptists.
Adrien showed great promise as a student, and so the missionaries worked it out for him to attend a university in France, and from there to cross the channel to London, where eventually he earned his doctorate in anthropology. Yet in Adrien’s heart there was more than simply a thirst for scholarship. Adrien also knew Christ and loved the church. So there in London he became a part of a church that had been organized for French-speaking Africans like himself, and, through their encouragement, he went on to earn a theology degree, to be ordained by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, and to pastor that church, La Philadelphie, the Brotherhood.
Adrien came to Washington for post-doctoral study and showed up at my church. Once we discovered his credentials, we knew that we had to enable him to start a similar church here for French-speaking Africans. He began such a fellowship; it continues – in fact, I am to preach at its anniversary service in April. But that is by no means all of the Adrien Ngudiankama story.
For Adrien, you see, has a passion to combine his love of Christ and his pastoral ministry with his skills as an anthropologist and his passion to see Africa cleansed of the AIDS epidemic. Adrien understands how diseases are transmitted. Adrien knows how AIDS can be curtailed. He has knowledge to give and the motivation to give it. Who wouldn’t want to use that?
But one day Adrien called me to say that he had received an offer, perhaps an offer he could not refuse. The government of Congo had offered to make him the nation’s Minister of Health. He would presumably be in charge of that government’s efforts to deliver health care to its people. But I say, “presumably”, because Adrien told me, “Pastor, I am afraid it is a trap. I think they just want to get me back in the country where they can keep me quiet. They want to silence me.” And then he added the most poignant part of all: “But if I do not take the job, they may do something to my parents.”
Now what would you do? If you had the choice of taking a job that seemed good, but might be a trap; or of refusing it in order to stay free to do what you were called to do, but that decision might cost your loved ones dearly, what would you do? In the face of injustice, what would you do?
My friend and brother Adrien Ngudiankama is a man of prayer. He is a man whose heart is turned toward Christ. And most of all, he is one who believes that what God sets out to do, God will do, even if there is a price that we must pay. And so Adrien turned down the job; he managed to get his parents out of Congo and into England. Adrien still lives here, in Rockville, with only part-time work, with hardly anyone picking up on his considerable skills and impeccable credentials, chained, as it were, to America, but with his heart bent toward Africa and its millions of AIDS-related deaths.
I would love to be able to tell you that that victory is won. I would like to be able to say that what Adrien wants to do he will be able to do next month, next year. But I don’t know that. I only know, as he knows, that the God we serve will win a victory over injustice; the God we serve will conquer disease; the God we serve has broken every barrier down. And we are called to do whatever it takes and to be a part of His mission; for it will continue, without hindrance.
II
I don’t know how Paul did what he did, with all the obstacles in his way, except that he was a man of faith, who knew that our God is Lord and that He will accomplish what He sets out to do. I don’t know how Paul could keep on keeping on, even when chained to a guard for years, except that Paul understood that what looks to us like gross injustice is often an arena in which God turns the tables on oppression and works His salvation, without hindrance.
Nor do I know how Julius Mabey could persist after seeing his family murdered, after escaping with nothing but the clothes on his back, after working at this and that to pay his bills – except that Julius is a man of prayer, who trusts God and believes that when you see the tide turn, that is the work of God. God’s Spirit is without hindrance.
Nor do I understand how Adrien Ngudiankama can keep on working, keep on teaching, keep on pastoring, with little recognition and less income, when he really wants to be in Africa organizing health care delivery. But Adrien is a man of faith, who knows that our God is sovereign, our God is at work, our God is without hindrance.
None of these heroes of faith do I fully grasp. I only know that we in our church need to learn from our African brothers and sisters. I only know that we must focus on what our God has called us to be and to do. We think we have hindrances, don’t we? We think we are hindered by a changing community, in which folks who look like us and think like us are not here in large numbers any more. We think we are hindered by a significant debt that is holding our finances hostage. We think we are hindered by the loss of a beloved senior pastor and by the departures of this family and that who have moved on to other locations. We think we have every hindrance in our path, every chain binding us.
But, oh my brothers and my sisters, learn from Africa! Learn from men and women who have survived oppression, dealt with exploitation, struggled with poverty, and died from disease – and still, in no other place on earth is the Christian church so vibrant nor the Christian movement growing so rapidly! What we think of as hindrances are to them nothing but opportunities for God to do His work! For our God works without hindrance.
A number of years ago, my wife and I met a young man who was serving as a chaplain at American University. His name was Canaan Banana – yes, banana, just like the fruit. In fact, he liked to call his four children his “bunch”. Canaan was from what was then known as Rhodesia, but he was a part of the resistance movement, attempting to root out the last vestiges of colonialism from his homeland.
When Canaan finished his seminary degree at Wesley and returned home, he was arrested the moment he stepped off the plane. The powers that be were afraid of this mild-mannered Methodist minister. But when finally Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and the people could choose their own government, Canaan Banana was released from prison to become the first president of the nation. It was a proud time for all of us who had known him; I remember attending a reception when he came back to Washington on a state visit. What dignity and what spiritual power there was in this man who once, like Paul, had been chained to wardens, but who was now surrounded by an honor guard of his nation’s soldiers!
I could wish that that were the end of that story, but it is not. Oppression comes in many forms, and sometimes it comes from those with whom you think you have kinship. The office of president in Zimbabwe is largely ceremonial; the real power lies in the office of prime minister. The prime minister developed a deep jealousy for Canaan Banana; soon there were rumors and charges about Canaan’s morality – never really proved, but insidious and dangerous. Canaan was arrested and imprisoned; his family fled to England for refuge. And about four years ago now, Canaan Banana died, never to see his dream completed, never to know just when true freedom would come to his nation.
Sometimes, you see, unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it die, it bears much fruit. Sometimes the process by which God chooses to work will take time and will cost us, and we will not always see the end of it. But rest assured, it will come. For we serve a mighty God, and what God purposes to do, He will do.
Like John A. Broadus, taking the reins of Southern Baptist Seminary in the dismal days after the Civil War, with no money and few students, but saying to the other professors, “Perhaps the Seminary may die, but let us resolve to die first.”
Like a church only a few miles from here, with its resources exhausted and the banks threatening to foreclose, holding a prayer meeting that led its members to bring in family heirlooms, antique silver, old wedding rings, and anything they could sell in order to rescue their church.
Like Nelson Mandela, confined twenty-seven years to a small prison cell, forced to do hard labor in a quarry, limited to one thirty-minute visit a year, allowed to receive one letter every six months, but utterly committed to the end of apartheid for South Africa.
Like all these knew, so too must we know that the purposes of God will be accomplished. Not without blood, sweat, and tears, to be sure, and sacrifice. But God’s justice will be done, God’s victory will come. Without hindrance.
What a mighty God we serve, what a mighty God we serve! Angels bow before Him, heaven and earth adore Him, what a mighty God we serve! Without hindrance.
